


Goddamn Oracle Bullshit

by ThreeWhiskeyLunch



Series: Madness Because The Reasons Don't Make Sense [7]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Hallucinogens, Interspecies Sex, M/M, Rare Pairings, Xenophilia, You'll never look at the trash compactor in the same way again, and I'm really not sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:35:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3947374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeWhiskeyLunch/pseuds/ThreeWhiskeyLunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before there was Zaeed and Garrus, there was Zaeed and Thane. And Thane's toxic skin. And a trash compactor.</p><p>Technically a prequel for the Madness series. Rated E for language, smutty xenophelia, and hallucinogenic sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goddamn Oracle Bullshit

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as me just writing a bit to try and figure out what Thane wrote on the notecard (see chapter 1, Notes on Dating a Bounty Hunter). And to see if I could somehow write Zaeed without sounding like an idiot. Anyway, requests were made, gauntlets were thrown, and now we have some hallucinogenic interspecies tangling of limbs. Enjoy!

It started after our little mission on the Collector ship. Little mission. Fucking hell. Seeing all that, it gets to a man. Realizing that some things are just beyond the scope of comprehension. Realizing just how puny and goddamn insignificant one person is, how pitiful, how weak we all are. Shit like that makes a man rethink his priorities. And from the look on Shepard’s face, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. The short ride back in the shuttle had all three of us-Shepard, Thane, and myself-quiet. Dead men walking.  
  
Even Thane, usually so goddamn stoic and untouchable, couldn’t hide the tremor in his hands. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he stared at his fingers as if he’d never seen them before, like someone had switched them without his knowing. His usually red gills were a different color, purple like. Blue around the gills. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so goddamn scary.  
  
“Life's too short for this shit,” Shepard said. He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. Just voicing what we were all thinking. “How did this all go so fucking wrong?”  
  
This.  
  
I knew what he meant. This existence. This universe.  
  
I’d witnessed a lot of wretched shit in my nearly fifty years and what I’d just seen topped it all in spades. The churning in my gut told me that that wasn’t nearly the end of it either. Shepard knew it too. He looked about to puke his soul out. Hard to not feel hopeless when the man who’s supposed to be saving us all is having second thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t too late to find a hidey hole on some insignificant little planet and wait it all out.  
  
...or not...  
  
Thane was still quiet and I think that disturbed me even more. I was hard pressed to admire many people. For the most part, my daily intake of idiot got topped up by elevenses. Different with Shepard’s crew. Nice working with people who knew what the hell they were doing for a change. Tali and Kasumi and Grunt and Jack-however out of control she could get sometimes. And Garrus. Well, Garrus was another story for another time. Samara scared the shit outta me more than I let on. Tough bitch. But Thane I liked as a friend and I didn’t have many of those. Maybe it was our commonalities. Maybe it was circumstance. Maybe it didn’t matter. That we seemed to get on was enough.  
  
I stretched my foot out across the aisle and tapped my boot on his. “Hey. You alright?”  
  
He looked startled. Forgot where he was or something. He was a hard man to read, those black eyes blinking away. Unfathomable depths, some might say about those eyes. I knew that look he gave me just then. Desperation with a side order of glad-to-be-alive and a shitstorm of adrenaline. Only a couple ways to deal with feelings like that before you get eaten alive by them.  
  
“I-” he shook his head, but before he could finish his thought the shuttle bumped down on the _Normandy’s_ bay. Shepard was up and out of there like a thresher maw was attached to his ass, yelling at Joker to get us the hell out of there. There was a surge in the center of gravity of the ship as it slid into FTL, fleeing the hot hell of the Collector ship.  
  
After a minute, I stood and tapped Thane on the shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s work it off.” I made my way over to the workout matts, popping the seals on my armor, shucking the outer layer down to my undersuit. I heard him follow, heard the sound of his leather coat hit the floor. I turned on the matt, fists up, bouncing on the balls of my feet. We’d sparred before, but never when he was so jacked up on nerves and adrenaline.  
  
He paced a bit in front of me, gathering up his energy, then came at me in a rush with fists flying. A little sloppy, easy for me to block. But there was force behind the hits, enough to send me back a few paces. “That all you got, Krios?” I taunted, needled at him to get his blood up, get him working that shit out. He swiveled on a foot, aimed his other at my chest in a quick strike. Had to duck that or have my lungs punched out my back. A whiff of air told me how close he’d missed; not by much. But he didn’t stop, coming at me in a blur so I could barely land a hit of my own. All I could do to back around the matt in a circle, keep goading him on so that we eventually fell into a rhythm-hit and dodge, taunt and attack. He landed a couple good hits on my jaw. I could taste the coppery blood on my tongue.  
  
Eventually I was able to get in a few of my own, but he’d always been too fast for me to manage much. It made me wonder what he had been like, before Kepral's Syndrome had started whittling away at his stamina. Then he brought me down, flat on my back with the air forced out of my lungs, staring up at the goddamn ceiling like an Asari whore. He had me pinned with his body, but there wasn’t much reason. I wasn’t going anywhere. I tapped out, gasping in air. "Sonuvabitch-" He held me down for another few seconds, had a look in his eye that I hadn’t seen before. Then I felt his dick on my leg, hard as a goddamn rock through his pants. Ah. So that’s what that look was.  
  
More than one way to skin a cat. And I wasn’t averse. Never been with a Drell, male or female, before. Heard a few things that had me intrigued. And since a certain Turian had his head in a cloud named Shepard, this could be a pleasant diversion.  
  
The answer to the question is: yes, when humans lick a Drell, they have an allergic reaction. Causes some interesting side effects. Done some shit in my time. I’m no angel. Never had a high like that before. Goddamn intense.  
  
\-----  
  
"Lick me," he said, after we had made our way up to my hideaway in the cargo hold. "It doesn't matter where."  
  
Not every day someone makes that offer. So I licked him.  
  
Thane had flavor. It hit me as my tongue traveled over the smooth scales of his neck, just under his gills. Like lemon and some kind of bitter herb. Pungent, but not unpleasant. He was looking at me in expectation, those fucking black eyes boring a hole right through me. "What?" Nothing happened.  
  
And then everything happened...  
  
...someone dims the lights, or brightens them or something maybe both but he’s brilliant in his intensity...white hot and electric, I see through the intricate layers of scales on the hand that strips me, see the blood pulsing, the bone, the muscle...shimmer of essence and clockwheel of time speeding and slowing maybe standing still and everything goddamn motherfucking glowing like each atom holds its own sun and moon and galaxy…  
  
...hands on me, familiar-where the fuck did my clothes go?-and not and something's biting at a scar on my ribs like it wants to pull it off and I couldn't be bothered to care...yeah...take it...I’ve got more...  
  
...Thane's gills under my fingers, like wound up ribbons of silk and there's a sound I've never heard before in my life, singing underwater and the sound moves through me, down my spine under my armpits, into the hair on my chest, works its way into my balls that feel heavy like they're about to erupt, break open and I couldn't be bothered about that either because we're both full of that warm, glowing light and Thane is iridescent, his mouth on my cock, swallowing it down, barely feel the scrape of his teeth that's more pleasure than pain...want to hear the sound again, rub my thumb over the ribbon of his gills, wet damp fluttering and the space around him shimmers and that's funny because...not sure why...but it's still funny and I laugh like I haven't since...well, ever...  
  
...sharp dull press of the edge of the desk against my ass, pretty sure that line will stay there forever, cut me in two, leave me sawed open and still blinking into the void of blackness, his eyes round and whole and I can see everything there, fortune teller's magic ball, swirling with smoke and lies and imperfection and the entire goddamn filthy universe...cum floods his mouth and it must be mine but I wonder, balls still feeling full and ready to explode, but that urge in my thighs fades and I trail a hand down his chest to pull at clothes that are still on him, wanting to see if his dick glows iridescent too...  
  
...intertwining tendrils wrap around my skin, vines that stimulate every nerve ending and if it's real I don't care and if it's not I want morefuckIwantmore…the vines bind us together, his scales moving on my skin and it's like nothing and something smooth and soft and hard but not rough just pliable under curious fingers, his colors rippling in the ethereal light...  
  
...goddamn Thane has his finger in my goddamn ass and I'm up against the goddamn trash compactor, dick smearing precum on the glass and then he's in me and I wonder if his cock has that shit on it too because I think my ass is hallucinating...Thane's muscles hold me up, I have nothing left inside to keep me standing, not even my will and he fucks me and I fuck the glass, cool smooth slick now and it almost gives, bends, and then it does give, bend, pulses with life and the warm bodies fucking up against it and he's not done will he never be done I don't want him to be done but I cum again, write my everlasting mantra on the glass...Zaeed Massani was here...  
  
...no he's not done thank fuckingjesuschrist forever and ever amen…  
  
...cold floor, grit of sand under my shoulder, digging in so they'll remain just under my flesh, tiny bumps to remind me that this is was will be real because it all could be a dream or I could be dead and I'll know if he stops I'm in hell or keeps going and I'm in heaven even though I've never believed in such things before and never will again...he gives and I take and yes, heaven is real for this moment with his hand wrapped around my dick and he's hard between my ass cheeks but no not just heaven ParadiseUtopiaMindlessBliss as he bloody well wrings the last of the sperm from my sapped balls, nearly pulls it from me and maybe I beg maybe I don't stop no don't stop because I want more but can't take anymore and that music again and I fucking see the ephemeral waves of sound when they hit the walls and the floor, shimmering in the thick air, his hot cum sticky on my thighs...  
  
...he's standing over me, leaves me on the floor naked and spent and how can he fucking stand when my own bones and muscles have been wrenched from my body? and he looks...goddamn fucking smug...can't say as I blame him, not just anyone could lay me out on the floor, naked as the day I was born, and not get a complaint about it, or a goddamn gunshot to the gut…  
  
The lights dimmed and blinked, less intense than before. "Thanks, for that," I said.  
  
He smiled, teeth bared behind those full Drell lips. "Anytime."  
  
That was how it started.  
  
How it ended was another story.  
  
\-----  
  
Omega. Fucking hell hole of the universe. God how I hated it, but I kept going back to it like a baby to the tit. It fed me jobs, more than I could take in twenty lifetimes. But goddamn Shepard and his goddamn morals and now I'm looking for jobs with purpose. Can't just be about the money anymore. No. The Illusive Man took care of that problem anyway. If I'm asked I'd deny it, but it's not enough just running bounties on debt jumpers.  
  
Then I got that message from Krios the younger. "Thane wounded. Doesn’t have long. Would like to see you if possible."  
  
Who says no to that shit?  
  
So I took a job I should have looked into a bit harder all so I can get back to the Citadel in a hurry. Buncha dimwitted mercs with too much ego and less sense than a barrel of fat pyjaks. But maybe Cerberus is involved and I'd like to get my hands on a couple of those fuckers whenever possible. Downright satisfying hearing their screams.  
  
Small miracle Shepard got to that Volus before I made a serious mistake. Like I said-didn't do my research beforehand. Not the first or last time Shepard hauled my ass out of the fire.  
  
What he couldn't do was go with me to the goddamn hospital and shield me from what I found there. Nothing in the world as painful as watching someone you care about die a horrible death and nothing for it but sit and watch. But I was never one to hold pity parties.  
  
"You look like shit," I told him. If nothing else, trying to get a rise outta him, get his blood up. And he did look like shit warmed up and served as leftovers. His normally smooth scales were a bit dried out, the shine gone from them. His second eyelids didn't retract as quickly as they should, lingering like they were too tired to obey. His eyes were still sharp though, still made me feel like I was lined up on the wrong side of his sniper scope.  
  
"You don't. Although I understand you could be looking worse." Shit, his voice was rough and raspy.  
  
"Shepard already told you?" At his nod, I snorted. "He's worse than a gossiping old church lady."  
  
He shrugged. "He knows I care about your well-being."  
  
I didn't push that. Not sure I wanted to know how much Shepard knew about the two of us. I took a moment and looked around. His son had left quietly, leaving us alone in the simulated sun-drenched room. Dust motes moved on the recirculated air, the dim blip of machinery in the corner behind his bed the only sound. It was a little breath of stillness-if you could call it that-in a massively insane point in time.  
  
A rustle of fabric and his hand was outstretched toward me. I knew I shouldn't. I knew it would break me, but God help me I took it. I was right. His scales was dry, rough under my fingers. It made my heart burn in a way that it hadn't in a long time. Anger and shame and regret all rolled up in one big goddamn gut punch. "I've missed you," he said. "Missed your friendship."  
  
And what the hell could I say to that? I was the wrong one to turn to in tender moments. "Thane-" I gripped his hand tighter, moved closer to the bed with my hip leaning on the mattress. I fought down an overwhelming urge to wrap him up, carry him out of there, find some sniper's nest for the two of us. Let him go out with some dignity. But he already had a bullet wound the size of a Krogan’s quad in his stomach. He wouldn't last a minute outside that door.  
  
"Zaeed. I’m okay. Everything is alright." He was tugging at my hand, pulling me in. I couldn't fucking resist him. I've never figured out how to deny someone I cared about. I sat on the bed and he urged me down, wrapped his arms around me and I wondered how it was that he was the one dying and yet I'm the one being comforted. I was too aware of his injuries to hold him too close, too aware of his lungs in pain to do more than rest my forehead on his shoulder. I closed my eyes and breathed in his warmth.  
  
"I could have loved you," he said, after several minutes of silence.  
  
"Fucking hell, Thane. Don't-" I tried to pull away, but there was nothing weak about his arms, holding me still and against him even tighter than before.  
  
"Shush. Listen. I just want you to know. You're not unlovable. If it wasn’t for the memory of my wife, you would have had my heart to do with as you wished." His fingers traced over my back, through the fabric of my fatigues to find old scars that he knew well. "Even so, your friendship has meant more than I ever expected. I never thought-Well. I'm pleased. That I know you. It was unanticipated, but not unwanted."  
  
The burn had moved from my heart to my throat. All I could do was try and keep it there with long breaths. I felt my fingers grip too tightly on his arm, released them only to find his fingers twined with mine again. "Just...try to forgive yourself." His voice was a quiet rasp in my ear.  
  
I could feel the burn trying to escape my traitorous mouth, swallowed hard. "Fuck. Thane-"  
  
"It was selfish of me to ask you here." He sighed, heavy breaths moving his chest, moving me. "You should go. Don't come back." He coughed and I could hear the air being forced through his lungs, the rattle of his struggle to breathe. "Go fight. Survive and find someone to live for." By the way he said it, I knew he had someone in mind. I moved back to look in his eyes to be sure. He nodded. "He needs you just as much as you need him."  
  
It was more than I could take. "Goddamnit, Thane. What're you, the fucking oracle?"  
  
He smiled at that, laughing a little until he started coughing. "I'm dying," he said when the fit had passed. "It's my prerogative."  
  
I studied him carefully. "For the record, I missed you. And if you tell anyone, I'm coming over that goddamn sea of yours and I'll make you regret it."  
  
"Your secret is safe with me." He paused for a moment, then nodded, lips twisted in a smirk. "Both of them."  
  
"How the hell d'you-" Pretty goddamn sure I'd never told him, because I hadn't told anyone what was going on in my fucked up head during that entire mission, what still seemed to be going on in my fucked up head in regards to the Turian.  
  
He grinned, easy and smug. "I saw. Little things. No one else would have noticed."  
  
I rolled my eyes. "You're an ass."  
  
"You would know."  
  
That made me laugh. Takes one to know one. I leaned closer, pressed my lips to his cheek. "Yeah, I would."  
  
Two days later, the message came from Kolyat. And I went out and got good and goddamned drunk. Might have done some damage in a small corner of Zakera Ward that I don't remember. But I had some pretty cuts and bruises on my knuckles to wake up to in the morning. Along with a package from Kolyat. His father's prayer book wrapped in brown paper with a message on a note card inside, written in Thane's hand: "Don't waste the time you have left."  
  
Goddamn oracle bullshit.  
  
But he was right and I knew it.  
  
Had some business to take care of. Help Shepard take down the goddamn Reapers. Make sure Vido got what was coming to him. Survive all that. And then.  
  
Well. Then it might be about time to look up a certain Turian.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: Goddamn Oracle Bullshit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8020471) by [Djapchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Djapchan/pseuds/Djapchan), [ThreeWhiskeyLunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeWhiskeyLunch/pseuds/ThreeWhiskeyLunch)




End file.
